Mostafa Yousuf

Rohingya crime gangs have resorted to murder, abduction and extortion to establish their supremacy at Cox’s Bazar refugee camps and control drug trades.

Dhaka has been ranked fourth amongst the 20 most unsustainable megacities in the world, as the capital is reeling from rapid depletion of greenery, water scarcity and exploding population, says a global report.

Bangladesh could generate 6,500 megawatts of solar electricity in the next three years if the country invests $11 billion in solar instead of importing LNG from the spot market at the same cost, said global energy think-tank Ember.

Once upon a time, the country’s port city was celebrated for its lush vegetation and green hills. However, in the last three decades, the city has already lost half its greenery to unchecked, unplanned urbanisation.

Two years have passed since the declaration of the Padma Bridge Wildlife Sanctuary, but the forest department is yet to take any steps to conserve the biodiversity of the Padma.

Climate Technology Park, launched on Saturday in Gazipur’s Sripur upazila, is set to open a new horizon in adaptation research to tackle the impacts of climate change.

Prices of eggs, rice, vegetables and flour have risen in the capital’s kitchen markets again, increasing the burden on those with limited incomes.  

The Department of Prison and the Forest Department are at odds over demarcation of forestland in Ukhiya upazila of Cox’s Bazar.

Unbridled sand mining that had been ravaging the reserve forest in Cox’s Bazar’s Chakaria has slowed down, thanks to the heightened surveillance by the Forest Department.

Mostafa Jamal Uddin Talukdar started working for the Forest Department as a forest guard in 1987. He has been continuing his service in the same post for the last 33 years without a single promotion.

Four days after the tragedy that killed five of a family in Uttara, the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) authority finally started setting up safety barriers along around 10 kilometres of the project area, from Uttara to Gazipur.

Even though Forest Department found and rescued three capped langurs, endangered animals that cannot be caught and caged by law, from a lawmaker’s bungalow in Savar, no legal action has been taken against him.

The managing director of Bangladesh Climate Change Trust has been collecting “donations” in exchange for releasing cheques to the projects under the trust, violating government servant conduct rules.

Forest Department wants to achieve zero poaching in the Sundarbans, the world’s largest mangrove forest and home to the critically endangered Royal Bengal Tigers.

Renowned Bangladeshi mountaineer Wasfia Nazreen conquered the treacherous K2 in Pakistan, becoming the first person from Bangladesh to summit the second-tallest mountain in the world.

The government has handed over a part of Jungle Khuniya Palong reserved forest in Cox’s Bazar to the Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) for building a residential training facility after de-reserving the 20-acre land. 

With Eid getting ever closer, Rohingya camps have been in a festive mood lately, as many were seen buying animals for sacrifice in nearby cattle markets.

Forest Department has set up solar fences in Rangamati and Sherpur to lessen elephant raid on human settlements and crops.

Experts have warned that the Himalayan region, which is already suffering from severe flooding, notably in the northeastern portion of Bangladesh, may see even more devasting natural disasters brought on by climate change as a result of changing rainfall patterns.

The government is planning to invest $80 billion to shift the country from climate-vulnerable to a sustainable climate-resilient country under Mujib Climate Prosperity Plan (MCPP) by 2030, Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal said yesterday while unveiling the national budget for the fiscal year 2022-2023.